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Stormy Weather

Stormy Weather centers on the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. The devastation of the storm has attracted crowds of voyeurs and impostors to Florida. Drawn by the chance to prey on Andrew's victims, misfits like the murderous ex-con Snapper and the dangerously seductive Edie find easy targets for their insurance scams. They're not prepared, though, when they meet their opposition, led by a hoary ex-governor who smokes toads.

Both hilariously funny and deadly accurate, Carl Hiaasen's novel will take you into a Florida that is far from the frilly palms and pink flamingos of its post cards.

Basket Case

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff". Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident", might be the stiff of Jack’s dreams - if only he can figure out what happened.

Lucky You

Grange, Florida, is famous for its miracles - the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery. Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they're entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot. And they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America. But JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money - an Eden-like forest in Grange must be saved from strip-malling.

Star Island

Meet 22-year-old Cherry Pye (nee Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was 14 - and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster.Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her undercover stunt double, Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too indisposed - meaning wasted - to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott.

Native Tongue

Ex-reporter Joe Winder had been working in the public relations department of a sleazy family entertainment park, The Amazing Kingdom of Thrills, when he chanced upon a news-breaking story inspired by the disappearance of two blue-tongued voles and the bizarre death of Orky, the killer whale.

Skinny Dip

When Chaz Perron's wife discovers that he is running a scam (posing as a marine biologist to doctor water samples so that an agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the Everglades), he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner. Unlucky for Chaz, Joey survives clutching a bale of Jamaican pot. Rescued from the Atlantic by a former police officer, Mick Stranahan, she decides not to report him but instead haunt and taunt him, with Mick's help, by playing dead.

Double Whammy

A twisted tale of murder in the world of big-stakes bass fishing tournaments. Filled with ex-wives, evangelists, and an armed pit-bull, this is a story that could only be concocted by Carl Hiaasen, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, and czar of Florida noir fiction.

Skin Tight

This novel by Carl Hiaasen, author of Tourist Season and Native Tongue, begins as most thrillers do, with a killing. But this is no everyday, hum-drum, garden variety killing. Our hero, Nick Stranahan, a 42-year-old private investigator who has killed five men and been married five times, skewers his attacker's aorta with the razor-sharp bill of a stuffed marlin.

Razor Girl: A Novel

When Lane Coolman's car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an ordinary accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!). Behind the wheel of the other car is Merry Mansfield - the eponymous Razor Girl - and the crash scam is only the beginning of events that spiral crazily out of control while unleashing some of the wildest characters Hiaasen has ever set loose.

Nature Girl

Honey Santana, impassioned, willful, possibly bipolar, self-proclaimed "queen of lost causes", has a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference, and dinnertime sales calls. She's taking rude, gullible Relentless, Inc., telemarketer Boyd Shreave and his less-than-enthusiastic mistress, Eugenie, into the wilderness of Florida's Ten Thousand Islands for a gentle lesson in civility. What she doesn't know is that she's being followed by her Honey-obsessed former employer.

Bad Monkey

Andrew Yancy - late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office - has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first - this being Hiaasen country - Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters.

Strip Tease

No matter what you heard or thought about the movie version of Strip Tease, forget it. Film simply can’t catch the layers of humor, satire, and imagination that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Hiaasen creates in each of his novels.

Skink - No Surrender

Classic Malley - to avoid being shipped off to boarding school, she takes off with some guy she met online. Poor Richard - he knows his cousin’s in trouble before she does. Wild Skink - he’s a ragged, one-eyed ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, the unlikely pair scour the state, undaunted by blinding storms, crazed pigs, flying bullets, and giant gators.

Tourist Season

Tourist season is swinging into high gear in Miami. So are the activities of a bizarre terrorist group determined to keep the hapless "snowbirds" away. Armed with bombs, weed, and jumbled credos, they move toward their grand target, the Orange Bowl Parade, with plans to bring Miami and its tourist trade to a halt.

If you think the wildest, wackiest stories that Carl Hiaasen can tell have all made it into his hilarious, best-selling novels, think again. Dance of the Reptiles collects the best of Hiaasen's Miami Herald columns, which lay bare the stories - large and small - that demonstrate anew that truth is far stranger than fiction. Hiaasen offers his commentary - indignant, disbelieving, sometimes righteously angry, and frequently hilarious - on burning issues like animal welfare, polluted rivers, and the broken criminal justice system as well as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Bernie Madoff's trial, and the shenanigans of the recent presidential elections.

Chomp

Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, snappers, and more in his backyard. The critters he can handle. His father is the unpredictable one.

Trap Line

Key West is a smuggler's paradise. All that's needed are the captains to run the contraband, and Breeze Albury is one of the best fishing captains on the Rock. He's in no mood to become the Machine's delivery boy, however. So the Machine sets out to persuade him. It starts by taking away Albury's livelihood and his freedom. But when the Machine threatens Albury's son, the washed-out wharf rat turns into a raging, sea-going vigilante.

Florida Roadkill

Sunshine State trivia buff Serge A. Storms loves eliminating jerks and pests. His drug-addled partner Coleman loves cartoons. Hot stripper Sharon Rhodes loves cocaine, especially when purchased with rich dead men's money. On the other hand, there's Sean and David, who love fishing and are kind to animals - and who are about to cross paths with a suitcase filled with $5 million in stolen insurance money. Serge wants the suitcase. Sharon wants the suitcase. Coleman wants more drugs... and the suitcase.

Scat

Mrs. Bunny Starch, the most feared biology teacher ever, was last seen during a field trip to Black Vine Swamp. The school's headmaster and the police seem to have accepted the sketchy, unsigned note explaining that her absence is due to a family emergency. Theres no real evidence of foul play. But still, Nick and Marta don't buy it. Something weird is definitely going on.

Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for the Miami Herald and is the author of many best-selling titles, including Sick Puppy, Nature Girl, and The Downhill Lie.

Florida Straits: A Key West Mystery, Book 1

In the grand tradition of Elmore Leonard, Laurence Shames creates an outrageous heavyweight thriller that’s heavy on atmosphere and action. Joey Goldman is a low-level New York hustler. He’s taking a working vacation in South Florida and looking to score big with a time-share scam. His half brother Gino Delgatto is a man in need of a fall guy. When they meet in Key West, the term dysfunctional family takes on a new meaning. Will one of them succeed? Or will the Miami mob find an eye-popping way to dispose of them both?

Powder Burn

New York Times best-selling author Carl Hiaasen teamed up with journalist Bill Montalbano for this gripping thriller. Powder Burn stars Chris Meadows, a successful Miami architect who's leaving a meeting with an ex-girlfriend when he sees a car strike his ex, killing her. But the nightmare is only just beginning. As a witness to the crime, Chris knows the car's passengers - thugs linked to Miami's deadliest drug lords - are sure to come after him next. But what can he do if the police refuse to give him protection?

Scavenger Reef

On best-seller lists all over the country with his witty cynicism and delightfully dark humor, Laurence Shames writes thrillers that his fans endearingly classify as great “Florida noir.” In the tradition of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, he gives character to the inhabitants of Florida’s steamy underbelly. Artist Augie Silver’s friends are ostensibly grief-stricken when he drowns in a shipwreck off Scavenger Reef, but most of them are nervous because his body wasn’t found.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye: A Harry Bosch Novel, Book 21

Harry Bosch is California's newest private investigator. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't have an office, and he's picky about who he works for, but it doesn't matter. His chops from 30 years with the LAPD speak for themselves. Soon one of Southern California's biggest moguls comes calling. The reclusive billionaire has less than six months to live and a lifetime of regrets. He hires Bosch to find out whether he has an heir.

Mangrove Squeeze

Laurence Shames’ funny, elegantly written, and hip thrillers have topped best-seller lists across the country, and earned him a leading role as a writer of “Florida noir” with Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen. When Island Frigate advertising rep Suki Sperakis decides to write an exposé on the Key West black market, she is strangled and left for dead in the trunk of a car sinking slowly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Publisher's Summary

When Palmer Stoat notices the black pickup truck following him on the highway, he fears his precious Range Rover is about to be carjacked. But Twilly Spree, the man tailing Stoat, has vengeance, not sport-utility vehicles, on his mind. Idealistic, independently wealthy, and pathologically short-tempered, Twilly has dedicated himself to saving Florida's wilderness from runaway destruction. He favors unambiguous political statements - such as torching Jet-Skis or blowing up banks - that leave his human targets shaken but re-educated.

After watching Stoat blithely dump a trail of fast-food litter out the window, Twilly decides to teach him a lesson. Thus, Stoat's prized Range Rover becomes home to a horde of hungry dung beetles. Which could have been the end to it had Twilly not discovered that Stoat is one of Florida's cockiest and most powerful political fixers, whose latest project is the "malling" of a pristine Gulf Coast island. Now the real Hiaasen-variety fun begins....

Dognapping eco-terrorists, bogus big-time hunters, a Republicans-only hooker, an infamous ex-governor who's gone back to nature, thousands of singing toads and a Labrador retriever greater than the sum of his Labrador parts - these are only some of the denizens of Carl Hiaasen's outrageously funny new novel.

Brilliantly twisted entertainment wrapped around a powerful ecological plea, Sick Puppy gleefully lives up to its title and gives us Hiaasen at his riotous and muckraking best.

Would you consider the audio edition of Sick Puppy to be better than the print version?

I do enjoy listening to Carl Hiaasen novels in the car, but I'm sure I'd enjoy the printed word as well. Sick Puppy is a good one for the commuter -- not too hard to follow and plenty of good laughs.

What did you like best about this story?

Skink is always awesome. But in this case I really enjoyed Twilley Spree's antics.

Have you listened to any of George Newbern’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, Seabiscuit: An American Legend. Both books were well-read.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Well, one or two moments were moving, but I don't want to write a spoiler.

Any additional comments?

Hiaasen's novels are satirical crusades against government corruption, corporate greed, and most of all, land development and other crimes against nature. He does not spare either side of the aisle, but I suspect that if you tune in to conservative talk radio, you will not like this book. On the other hand, if you are inclined to make donations to The Nature Conservancy and similar-minded groups, Hiaasen may stop your tears for at least a little while.

I really enjoyed this. I took a chance on it based on the reviews, and was glad I did. Although probably part of the last third could have been eliminated (it got a little long and bogged down before the climax) the ending was worth it. The ending was absolutely hysterical, and a great pay-off.

The title, 'Sick Puppy', was great, in that the story did indeed have an actual sick canine, but the same title could have applied to many characters in the book. Great story!

A strange guy sees an a****** in a new sports car driving down the road tossing litter out of his window and finds an ingenious way to get even with him. From there things begin to escalate in ways that could only happen in a Carl Hiaasen novel. As always ecology is a major theme in the plot of a Hiaasen novel as are the weird offbeat characters that always seem to populate fiction written by the author. Again, as usual, there is a beautiful blonde stuck with the dorky p**** whose role is to be the book's clueless antagonist; until she begins an affair with the almost as clueless but much more lovable protagonist. The audiobook is okay even with a narrator who seems to be mediocre at best; it might be better to read the print version.

I continue to enjoy Carl Hiaasen for a fun, light listen. Sick Puppy was no exception. In typical Hiassen fashion, he comes up with some truly outlandish characters, dirty politicians, polluting public, and eco warriors.

I'm a big fan of Carl Hiaasen, at least his earlier books. This one never sat right when I first read it and now listening to the audio I've reconfirmed that impression. Hiaasen has always used familiar elements but never before has it felt so going through the motions than this time. The villains just didn't seem so villainous, the heroes were scum bags. Only the dog was really likable.

Carl Hiaasen must have a labrador because his descriptions are dead on. That is probably why he seems to have transferred over towards children's fair. His bag of tricks was a bit used up.

If you want to try Carl Hiaasen try some of his earlier work. Any of his earlier work.

The narrator ruined the audio book of Sick Puppy. If you have listened to other Hiassen audio books that have The Governor/Skink in them, you might be expecting engaging voices and inflections. The narrator read Skink in the same bland flat tone as every other character in the audio book.